The town fiesta in the '70s

Fiesta time in Bayambang town in the 1970s and before that was quite a far cry from today's festivities. Bayambangueños of a certain age would have a different memory of it.

Almost everyone at the time was a devout Catholic -- when the 6 PM siren sounded, every soul on the street stopped for a minute to pray the Angelus. So, of course, on fiesta day proper, there was the usual grand procession around Poblacion after the high mass at the parish church. Townsfolk lit candles at their housefront the moment the carroza of San Vicente Ferrer passed by their place. It was their reverential way of paying homage to their beloved patron.

In the homes, busily prepared were the traditional feast of assorted meat dishes that utilized the poor fattened pig (or cow) "from nose to tail," to go by today's parlance. There was quite a wide array of choices: igado, menudo, baguisen, mechado, caldereta, crispy pata, patatim, hamonado, pinapaitan, morcon, embotido, spare ribs, and a fatty pork dish that is pininyahan (cooked in pineapple juice). Obviously, this required many hands to prepare, usually immediate kith and kin recruited from the barrios whom the family referred to as "angapo'y arom" (literally "no one else" but used in a positive sense: "not different from us") or "kanayon a peteg" (a member of the clan who is a very close relative whether the family member has just met him or her for the first time or already some sort of a best friend). Certain dishes had to be prepared the night before -- there were no shortcuts, as there were no food processors yet. The sound from the kitchen was a symphony of soft and loud thugs from all that cutting and chopping and mincing, on top of the endless banter among close relations.

Friends and relatives from afar, even as far as Manila and even those from abroad, visited and dined together, renewing ties by exchanging happy updates about their lives. There was an unmistakable air of excitement around this time.

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About a couple of weeks prior to the fiesta week, there was the tell-tale arrival of the "caravan," the roving vendors of various goods temporarily setting up makeshift shops in town using collapsible materials. They made brisk sales, as locals lapped up their diverse offerings, from dining sets to shirts to plastic toys.

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As the feast day neared, the plaza was invaded more and more by the peryaan (perya) and sirko (circus) with the arrival of a roving troupe from afar. There were fun games of all sorts, like in today's mall arcades. You hit balloons with a dart, and you win a stuffed toy. You threw hoops into a target and there was an equivalent prize, like some nice glassware for the kitchen. The air was, of course, pervaded by happiness and amusement, one that is punctuated by shrieks of surprise.

Children and their tenders eagerly awaited their turn as they lined up for the Ferris wheel, caterpillar, octopus, and other fun rides, and later in the '80s, the horror train and the haunted house.

For the circus, a giant parachute was set up as a tent. People paid considerable fees to get a good dose of thrill and excitement, but the shows were affordable to the huge majority. The locals got their money's worth through nightly shows featuring magicians of all sorts, jugglers, a flying trapeze troupe, animal shows featuring dogs that solved math problems and other amusing tricks. Some daredevil threw daggers within a literal inch of a poor lady's life who stood throughout the ordeal with her body positioned like a cross, and the audience, of course, watched with bated breath. Then there were the magic tricks that invited more horror, as in the case of a lady's body being seemingly cut up and rearranged in boxes piled on top of one another, and the piece de resistance: the elaborate horror show of cutting up another lady in two pieces using a giant saw...only for the ladies in all instances to emerge totally unscathed, and smiling too -- to the wild applause of the dumbstruck audience.

During those politically incorrect days, persons with various disabilities, now called PWDs, were made into a spectacle too, with the PWDs performing various stunts to entertain the crowd. They were marketed in a sensational way, as in, for example, "Ang Lalaking Ahas" for a man born without hands but who could shoot balls in a hoop, etc.

There were two shows that were most unforgettable to locals. One was "Ang Babaeng Kumakain ng Manok na Buhay" and a motorcycle stunt called "Tower of Death" that featured whizzing daredevils negotiating a circular wall that slowly turned vertical on the way up.

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The crowning of Miss Bayambang, which reportedly started in the 1920s, was a far cry from the star-studded beauty-and-brains pageant type of shows of today. It was done in "kwartaan" style, which means that each candidate had to solicit an amount of money from friends and relatives, and the girl who had solicited the greatest sum would emerge as the winner.

But it was not that simple. On the big night, which was scheduled after the feast day proper, there was the so-called "Social," where prominent townsfolk who came home from far and wide just for the festivities would jump a surprise by donating something unexpected, whether live chickens or cold cash, for their favored girl. And of course, the most favored one would be crowned Miss Bayambang.

At the center of the plaza was a giant crown-like structure that served as the holding area for the beauties and their respective families, and the crowning was held at the fronting stage with much pomp and pageantry. The costume, the crown, and the hair styling never failed to elicit oohs and aahs from the audience. The giant crown structure has since been transferred to the entrance of the plaza.

Proceeds went to development projects for the town.

After the fiesta, the town plaza stank from all that refuse and rubbish left by the perya people and the sirkeros and had to be thoroughly cleaned.